Category Archives: Partnership East

It’s Thursday, and another edition of From the TRC is published to highlight another service or resource the Teaching Resources Center in Joyner Library has to support the College of Education’s faculty and students. This week, it’s the Ronnie Barnes African-American Resource Collection.

Granted, it is Black History Month and that may be one reason why the Ronnie Barnes African-American Resource Collection is the subject of this week’s post. But, honestly, the main reason is to call attention to this valuable, yet underused resource in the Teaching Resources Center.

Allow me to back that statement up with numbers. So far this school year the Ronnie Barnes Collection has accounted for less than one (1) percent of the books circulated in the TRC. If that doesn’t sound small enough I’ll dig a little deeper into the statistics. Since July 2014, the TRC has accounted for 47%, on average, of Joyner Library’s monthly total circulation of books. What does that mean? Well, out of the 20,460 books that have been checked out from the TRC since July only 161 (0.7%) have come from the Ronnie Barnes Collection. Here’s why the collection is worth checking out any time of year:

Ronnie Barnes, ECU Class of ’75

Ronnie Barnes, an eastern North Carolina native, was the first graduate of ECU’s Sports Medicine program in 1975 and is the Senior Vice President of Medical Services and Head Athletic Trainer for the New York Giants of the National Football League. In 2002, he endowed a fund to develop and maintain a collection of materials written or illustrated by African-Americans, or about the African-American experience.

Caldecott Award books about African-Americans or by African-American authors or illustrators.

Newbery Award books about African-Americans or by African-American authors or illustrators.

Biographies of African-Americans for K12 students

Additionally, the adult collection contains all genres, from scholarly books to general fiction. The adult collection is highlighted on an annual rotating basis. At the end of each year, these materials rotate out of the Ronnie Barnes Collection into Joyner Library’s general stacks. The call numbers in the Ronnie Barnes Collection begin with “Barnes.”

For more resources to use in the classroom for Black History month click on these TRC and Joyner Library resources:

Recently, the Joyner Library made a new addition specifically to benefit the College of Education. Dan Zuberbier was hired as the Education and Instructional Technologies Librarian in the Teaching Resource Center.

Like many academic librarians, Dan Zuberbier didn’t follow a straight path to the profession. While finishing his B.A. in History at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, he was an assistant baseball coach at Edgewood College, a small private college down the street from the UW. “Baseball had been the center of my life for as long as I could remember,” he said. “Since I wasn’t playing ball any more it made sense to try and break into the coaching ranks.” Unfortunately being an assistant coach at an NCAA Division III school wasn’t enough to pay the bills, and he picked up odd jobs to make ends meet.

Eventually, Dan decided he needed a more stable career path. “Working the equivalent of two full-time jobs to pay the bills took the fun out of coaching baseball,” and reflected on what he wanted to get out of a career. “I needed a career that fulfilled my intellectual curiosities, and, at the same time, provided opportunities to develop meaningful relationships with young adults as I had been able to do with my baseball players. Teaching seemed like a natural fit.”

Setting his sights on becoming a high school history teacher, he enrolled in Pima Community College’s online Post-Baccalaureate Teacher Education Program, moved to Arizona to complete his student teaching, and earned his teaching license. Yet, four years later, his career took another unexpected turn. “I was having a hard time building up my students’ research skills, so I reached out to who I thought was our school librarian,” he said. “She kindly informed me she was the library clerk and had no experience teaching students research skills.”

Saying he was surprised his high school, the largest school in the district, didn’t have a certified library media specialist on staff is putting it mildly. To make matters worse, soon after their initial conversation, the library clerk broke her foot and was out of work for a week. Zuberbier stated, “Because she wasn’t a certified teacher-librarian, the school was under no obligation to hire a substitute to keep the library open in her absence. I was speechless.” After being shut out of their library for an entire week, Zuberbier wondered what else his students were missing out on because the school did not have a certified teacher-librarian.

He dove head-first into researching the role a library media specialist should play on a high school campus and petitioned the school board to fund the position. His request was denied. The Superintendent argued that because the school was only four years old, its collection was ‘still so new’ and students had access to so many online resources the school didn’t need a certified librarian. It took another year for Zuberbier’s efforts to succeed, and, in the meantime, he began earning his Master in Library and Information Science (MLIS) through UW-Milwaukee. He was also able to earn his library media specialist endorsement, and became his school’s first certified teacher-librarian.

“Soon after I started my MLIS program, I knew I couldn’t stop being a teacher. But, I also realized I wanted to give myself the opportunity to have an impact on the profession as an advocate for school libraries and through my work as an education librarian,” Zuberbier said. Which is why he considers himself fortunate to be working in East Carolina University’s Teaching Resources Center. “This is my dream job. To not only work with pre-service teachers by teaching them about instructional technologies and what they should expect out of their school library when they enter the workforce, but also serve educators throughout eastern North Carolina is an awesome responsibility.”

Zuberbier is currently working on developing workshops for students and faculty around the basic functions and lesson planning around the use of SMART Boards. He is also looking to collaborate with COE faculty to develop a series of workshops for students that will cover current and emerging K12 instructional technologies that will take place during the Fall semester. He currently resides in the TRC, room 2504, and can be reached through email, zuberbierd14@ecu.edu, or by phone, 328-0406.

‘Tis the season for giving! In honor of #GivingTuesday, East Carolina University is inviting alumni, friends, parents, students, faculty, and staff to join the movement by giving a charitable gift* on Tuesday, December 2, to the university that is near and dear to our hearts.

Founded in 2012 to inspire a new tradition of generosity, #GivingTuesday focuses on celebrating kindness and giving back. Support a culture of philanthropy at ECU by making a gift on December 2nd and becoming a partner in securing the university’s future for current students and future generations of Pirates.

Your gifts provide scholarships, enrich teaching resources and libraries, offer hands-on learning lessons, support research and the arts, deliver classroom enhancements, and afford study abroad living/learning opportunities – all of which help ECU attract and retain the best and brightest students and faculty.

Help spread the word! Mark you calendar to #GiveTueECU on December 2, tell your friends, and post on social media using the hashtags #GivingTuesdayECU and #GiveTueECU. “I Gave” badges will be available through ECU’s University Advancement and East Carolina Alumni Association’s social media accounts on December 2.

Learn more about the #GivingTuesdayECU movement. Thank you for your support!

The Senior Year Internship is a required clinical experience for teacher education majors at East Carolina University. It is a two-semester experience within a public school classroom, under the mentorship and coaching of a specially trained and licensed clinical teacher. The Senior Year Internship is designed to provide students with opportunities to internalize and apply previous teaching and learning experience, as well as opportunities to teach and grow professionally through observation, planning, teaching, assessment, and reflective work with an effective classroom teacher.

In Senior I, a teaching intern’s first semester, students acclimate themselves to the public school environment by gaining an understanding of policies and procedures, multiple roles of classroom teachers, the diverse needs of the students, as well as the beginning stages of a range of experiences of curricular planning, delivery of instruction, and assessment.

The second semester, Senior II, is an emersion semester of involvement with clinical teachers providing constant feedback to the intern about the teaching and learning process. In addition, the intern will complete a portfolio to document his or her growth and development as a classroom teacher with support from the clinical teacher and the university supervisor.

The Senior Year Internship is designed to allow students to gain practical experience and attain a level of competency needed for a high functioning novice beginning teacher. There is a key focus on specific and timely feedback from clinical teachers and university supervisors which is meant to augment the intern’s growth. The internship is invaluable in that it is practical learning combined with expert coaching from seasoned and trained teachers and supervisors.

Interns are generally able to make smooth transitions into their own classrooms once they are hired because of the depth of knowledge and experience they have acquired in this experience.

The Latham Clinical Schools Network (LCSN) is a network of 38 public school systems located throughout eastern North Carolina, who collaborate with the EPP at ECU in order to form a school partnership among teacher candidates and faculty. LCSN provides quality field placements for pre-service teachers with trained clinical teachers in diverse public school settings.

The LCSN is critical to the EPP successfully meeting the expectations of Standard 3,Field Experiences and Clinical Practice, Collaboration between the Unit and School Partners. Collaboration with the LCSN allows the EPP to strategically and proactively address concerns. One common issue collaboratively addressed through LCSN was the need for criminal background checks for field experiences (practicum) and clinical practice (internship).

The in-depth collaboration between ECU EPP and LCSN partners leads to synergistic gains for the partners. For the COE, partnerships from the LCSN support the TQP grant, focused on the clinical practice component. Instructional Coaching in LCSN member district (Pitt County Schools and Greene County Schools) was an original TQP clinical practice reform, and is also a Pirate CODE innovation. For LCSN, professional development is provided annually for all clinical teachers who mentor an intern during clinical practice through the fall and spring Clinical Teacher Conference and through other annual conferences, themed workshops, and collaborative professional development opportunities. These events unite EPP faculty and clinical partners in support of candidates.

Prior to the Site Visit, it is important for our public school partners in the LCSN to know about the EPP’s programs and Pirate CODE. LCSN representatives serve on the Council for Teacher Education, and are the crucial communication conduit for the EPP to the public schools.

Once the Site Visit schedule is determined, individual faculty, candidates, clinical teachers, university supervisors and other EPP stakeholders may possibly be invited to meet with the Site Visit Team.

The ECU Pirate CODE features a set of seven coordinated innovations linked throughout the teacher education curriculum and clinical practice. Each innovation is evolving through a series of carefully planned stages, to institutionalize each innovation in the Department of Elementary Education and Middle Grades Education. Once refined and data analysis proves it an effective model, the innovation is scaled up and implemented in other teacher preparation programs across the EPP.

The stages of the ECU Pirate CODE begin with small scale, squishy pilots and more through a carefully planned set of stages to refine, study, and expand the innovation.

Since the submission and approval of the Pirate CODE, the Research on Practice model has evolved within the unique and complete context of the ECU EPP. The language of the model has morphed into an implementation language from the original descriptors rooted in the R&D research literature. The Pirate CODE TI and model have been presented in multiple venues across the EPP and at the American Educational Research Association (AERA) Division K Research Summit as well as at an invited session to the 2014 AERA Annual Meeting.

On September 25-26, 2014, the NC Association of Colleges and Teacher Educators held its annual fall Teacher Education Forum in Raleigh, NC.

The Teacher Education Forum is a wonderful opportunity for teacher educators engaged in all aspects of preparation–from recruitment to curriculum, to clinical practice, to induction–to convene annually.

College of Education faculty presenting sessions at the 2014 Fall Forum included:

The ECU College of Education is one of several teacher education institutions nationwide to receive approval from the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP) to implement a transformation initiative (TI) called Pirate CODE (Continuum of Developing Expertise) as the framework for its spring 2015 National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) accreditation visit.

Pirate CODE brings seven research-based teacher education assessment initiatives that have previously operated independently throughout the college under one umbrella to strengthen and develop teacher candidates.

Students enrolled in the College’s Elementary Education and Middle Grades Education programs begin working with the first component of Pirate CODE during their sophomore year and experience different components throughout their junior and senior years. Each component is designed to improve and assess teacher preparedness using different, but complementary, methods.

A brief overview of the TI Innovations

Video Grand Rounds- Teacher candidates are given an introductory framework for classroom observations and subsequent discussions guided by faculty.

ISLES- Pre-service candidates develop a common framework of instructional practices which highlight effective evidence-based strategies for increasing student achievement through a series of online modules.

Professional Development for Clinical Teachers and University Supervisors- The local level of professional development consists of departments within the College of Education: The Office of Professional Development and Student Outreach, the Office of Assessment and Accreditation/Instructional Technology, the Office of Clinical Experiences, and the Irene Howell Assistive Technology Center.

Co-Teaching- The Co-Teaching partnership enables clinical teachers to provide consistent mentoring, giving interns the time and support necessary to gain skills required to teach successfully.

edTPA™- The edTPA™ is a valid and reliable summative capstone assessment to assess candidate readiness and provide data to inform program improvement.

For more information on each of the innovations, please visit the Pirate CODE website.

ECU’s accreditation cycle was extended by one year – from Spring 2014 to Spring 2015 – when our Transformation Initiative (TI) was approved. As a result, ECU was allowed to complete this accreditation visit under the old NCATE Standards, not the newly approved CAEP Standards. As a result, ECU is hosting an NCATE-Legacy Transformation Initiative accreditation visit.

The NCATE Unit Standards (2008) are:

Standard 1:Candidate Knowledge, Skills, and Professional Dispositions

Standard 2:Assessment System and Unit Evaluation

Standard 3:Field Experiences and Clinical Practice

Standard 4:Diversity

Standard 5:Faculty Qualifications, Performance, and Development

Standard 6: Unit Governance and Resources

More information about the NCATE Unit Standards (2008) and their indicators are available at http://www.ncate.org/.

The College of Education is one of only a few teacher education institutions nationwide to receive approval from the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP) to implement a transformation initiative called Pirate CODE (Continuum of Developing Expertise) as the framework for its spring 2015 CAEP accreditation visit.

Pirate CODE brings seven research-based teacher education assessment initiatives that have previously operated independently throughout the college under one umbrella to strengthen and develop teacher candidates.

CAEP chose ECU’s transformation initiative because it “provides research on teacher education and elements of teacher education programs that lead to the preparation of effective teachers who help students learn,” said Deborah Eldridge, the senior vice president of CAEP, in her letter announcing the selection.

Students enrolled in the college’s elementary education and middle grades education programs begin working with the first component of Pirate CODE during their sophomore year and experience different components throughout their junior and senior years. Each component is designed to improve and assess teacher preparedness using different but complementary methods.

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